What strategies are

A strategy is a named, reusable ruleset — you build it once, then apply it wherever it's needed instead of recreating the same rules over and over.

Two kinds of strategy

• Dispatch strategies control how orders go to providers — which providers are eligible, how they're ranked, and the routing rules that decide who gets the delivery. See dispatch strategies.
• Optimization strategies control how orders are batched and sequenced into routes for delivery. See optimization strategies.

You can build several strategies of each kind — for example, one dispatch strategy for standard orders and a stricter one for high-value orders — and switch between them as your needs change.

How strategies get used

A strategy only takes effect once it's active. From there, the two kinds are put to work differently:

• A dispatch strategy can be applied automatically by a workflow — Set dispatch strategy is an action you can add to any workflow, so the right strategy is used based on the conditions you define. See triggers, conditions, and actions and build a workflow.
• An optimization strategy runs on its own schedule (you set when and how often it optimizes), and you can also run one directly against a set of orders.